Shade of the evening is a beverage commonly drank by the warlocks of Qarth. It is the cause for their blue lips. The Warlocks believe that drinking large quantities of shade of the evening grants them magical powers.

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Daenerys is at a reception at the home of Xaro Xhoan Daxos, when the Warlock Pyat Pree shows up and does a trick where he appears to be replicated, then he invites her to visit the House of the Undying. After he leaves, Xaro comes over and apologizes. As a member of the The Thirteen, Pree got an honorary invitation. When asked about the House of the Undying, he tells Daenerys that it is where the warlocks gather to drink shade of the evening, which turns their lips blue and their minds soft. He then dismisses their magic as parlor tricks.[1]

Daenerys' ship travels west from Qarth and arrives at the city of Astapor in Slaver's Bay. Soon after she arrives, a Warlock sent from Qarth who is disguised as a small child attempts to assassinate Daenerys with a poisonous Manticore, but the attempt is foiled by Ser Barristan Selmy. The "child" Warlock hisses at them from the distance, revealing that its lips are stained blue by shade of the evening.[2]

In the A Song of Ice and Fire novels, Shade of the Evening is also known as the Wine of Warlocks. It is a thick blue beverage made from the inky blue leaves of the black-barked trees that grow outside the House of the Undying. It is drunk by those who enter the House of the Undying, so that they may "hear and see the truths" that will be laid before them. It does not turn lips blue with just one dose; many must be drunk. It smells like rotten flesh, has an oily texture, and tastes like all the tastes a person has ever tasted, and some that a person hasn't.

It isn't clear if drinking shade of the evening, on its own, grants magical abilities, given that the Warlocks were drinking it in the century and a half since the dragons died out but their powers still diminished. As the warlock Pyat Pree explained, the warlocks believe that there is a link between dragons and the presence of magic in the world, and thus the rebirth of dragons has caused their magical powers to return. Thus like other forms of magic, whatever effects may be granted by shade of the evening depend on the existence of live dragons in the world.